Six Days of Christmas: Keeping it simple; piping hot vanilla cake fresh from oven a Dover woman's family holiday favorite

Wednesday

Dec 19, 2012 at 3:15 AMDec 19, 2012 at 10:00 AM

DOVER — One talented baker learned her lesson a few Yuletides ago: All her family wants for Christmas is a hot vanilla cake.

By Michelle Kingstonmkingston@fosters.com

Editor's note: This is the first story in Foster's annual Six Days of Christmas series. This year we asked readers to share with us their funniest kids' Christmas story.

DOVER — One talented baker learned her lesson a few Yuletides ago: All her family wants for Christmas is a hot vanilla cake.

E. Helen Sevigny considers herself a very good cook. Every year since her mother-in-law passed away in 1989, she has been hosting Christmas parties. Her family, which consists of her husband, four children and several grandchildren, have a sit-down dinner and then invite 35 people over for a buffet-style meal and entertainment throughout the day.

“All these years later, I still do it,” Sevigny said. “I do it at my daughter's house because they think it is too much for me. My daughters and granddaughters help me do the cooking.”

The party has always been held before Christmas so that her grandchildren do not have to leave their toys on Christmas morning and so she can combine the holiday with her daughter Pamela's birthday, which is on Dec. 13. Moving the date also allows Sevigny and her husband to travel south for the holiday and spend it with their son, who now lives in North Carolina.

“My daughter in Merrimack joked and said, 'Why don't we have the party in July, Mom? You keep moving it earlier and earlier!”

This year, Sevigny's party will be held on Dec. 22, closer to Christmas than her parties in the past, because she said she needs to wait for her four grandchildren who are in college to get home.

“I would never have a party without them,” she said.

And this year, you better believe, she'll be omitting the maraschino cherries, and the coconut, special flour and white chocolate for that matter on this year's cake.

Why, you ask?

About 10 years ago, Sevigny was preparing for her holiday meal. She was in line at the grocery store and saw a beautiful cake on the cover of Good Housekeeping magazine.

“I decided I would make that for Pamela,” she said, deciding to forgo the tradition of sticking to what Pamela enjoys most, which is a vanilla cake, plain, hot, right out of the oven.

“I made the cake and it seemed to come out OK, aside from when I went to melt the chocolate,” Sevigny said. “It didn't melt well, but I frosted the cake anyway.”

After dinner, Sevigny set the cake down on the table, with all the guests admiring its beauty. The white cake had spears of chocolate on top that looked like Christmas trees and toasted coconut that looked like snow.

“It was absolutely beautiful and I was proud of it,” she said.

Until the cake was cut.

Sevigny said she was sitting at the table watching her husband, Paul, struggle to get the first bite of cake down. He was not swallowing, but craning his neck, wincing and chugging a glass of milk.

“My daughter, Pamela, who was sitting across from him, was doing the exact same thing and they were both laughing.”

After her daughter said nothing was wrong, Sevigny looked at her husband and said, “Something is wrong.”

He looked up at her and said, “Have you tried the cake?”

Sevigny bit in to her masterpiece and was taken aback by its dryness.

“Oh, it was so dry! You would not even believe. You could not swallow it. Everything was dry,” she said. “I still do not know why, to this day.”

Sevigny said she picked up the entire cake, went over to her trash can and dropped it inside.

“It went, 'THUD!'” she said. “It sounded like a brick when it landed.”

Every year since the cake fiasco, Sevigny is reminded that her daughter, Pamela, likes hot vanilla cake right out of the oven with no frosting.

“So this is what I make now. I don't do anything fancy anymore,” she said. “I stick to the original recipe of a plain box cake.”

Sevigny said she reread the recipe of the infamous disaster cake and is convinced that she did not miss any steps.

“I had everything it called for,” she said, adding that the only mistake she knows she did was use the wrong type of white chocolate. “But I know that would not make the cake dry. I don't know, I might have overcooked it, but it didn't burn. It is a mystery to this day.”

After this year's party, Sevigny will celebrate her wedding anniversary with her husband on Dec. 24 and head to her daughter Pamela's house in Vermont for Christmas.

She assured she would bring just a box of vanilla cake, no cherries or coconut this year.

“No frosting. Just hot out of the oven, cut it up and eat it,” she said.